December 2007 Vol. 26, #2
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Department of Communication Studies
225 Ford Hall, 224 Church Street S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Editor: Beatrice Dehler
Secretary: Edward Schiappa
Greetings! In this issue of COMMPOST we provide information about the department's participation in this year's National Communication Association annual convention, which took place last month in Chicago, Illinois. As you will see the department had remarkably strong participation in this year's convention. Nine senior faculty and twenty-two students had presentations in the conference. Kudos especially to the four students—Beth Bonnstetter, Sam Boerboom, Casey Kelly, and Abe Khan—who appeared on panels featuring top papers. Sam participated in two such panels; Beth (Student Division), Casey (Argumentation & Forensics), and Abe (Critical/Cultural Studies) had the Top Paper in their respective panels. Kudos also to Bea Dehler for planning the "Sweet Table of Treats" theme for the very successful University of Minnesota reception Friday night. The reception was well attended by students, faculty, alumni, prospective students, and friends of the department.
NCA CONVENTION PARTICIPATION - SENIOR FACULTY
Paper: "Latino/Anglo Interactions: Patients in Health Care Settings", Rosita Albert
Panel: Communicating Latina/o Worldviews: The Crossroads of Culture and Health, Rosita Albert
Respondent: Women and Agency: Challenging Definitions of Womanhood, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
Paper: "How Can Whites Fight White Racism in the Classroom and in the Discipline?", Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
Panel: White Scholars/African American Texts, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
Respondent: Against Communication: On the Deleuzoguattarian Ethics of Refusal (To Communicate), Ronald Walter Greene
Paper: "The Medium of Money: Corporate Communication and the Invention of Money/Speech", Ronald Walter Greene
Panel: What a Corporation Can Do, Ronald Walter Greene
Respondent: Governmentality, Public Policy, and Resistance, Ronald Walter Greene
Paper: "Beyond the Platform: The Invention of Communication and the Bio-political Domain of Liberalism", Ronald Walter Greene
Panel: Michel Foucault and the Question of Ethics, Ronald Walter Greene
Panel: Challenging Group Communication Research: A Scholarly Conversation, Dean Hewes
Paper: "Poole's Work on Communication and Group Decision-Making: Development, Challenges, and Future Directions", Dean Hewes
Panel: A Celebration of the Career Achievement of Marshall Scott Poole, Dean Hewes
Respondent: Parents, Parenting, and Parenthood, Ascan F. Koerner
Paper: "Mental Representations of Relationships: Associations between Family Communication Patterns and Relational Model Use in Three Relationship Types", Ascan F. Koerner
Panel: Communication Within Families: Parent-Child and Sibling Communication, Ascan F. Koerner
Panel: Family Communication Views: Having Faith in Research Methods While Intellectually and Ethically Conducting Research, Ascan F. Koerner
Meeting: Critical and Cultural Studies Division Business Meeting, Gilbert Rodman
Paper: "Beyond Representational Correctness: Why Perfect Representation is Impossible", Edward Schiappa
Panel: Representations in the Media, Edward Schiappa
Respondent: Critical Attempts at Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Restoration in Rhetorical Theory, Edward Schiappa
Panel Chair: Othering the Familiar in American Culture: Comic Books, Cowboys, and Airbrushing, Mary Vavrus
Panel Chair: The Politics of Motherhood in Public Discourse, Mary Vavrus
Panel: Women in the Academy: Issues of Access V, Mary Vavrus
Panel Chair/Respondent: Pop Progression: Contemporary Characterizations of Race and Gender in Primetime U.S. Television, Mary Vavrus
Respondent: White Scholars/African American Texts, Kirt Wilson
Facilitator: NCA pre-conference on Democratic Aesthetics, Kirt Wilson
NCA CONVENTION PARTICIPATION - GRADUATE STUDENTS
Paper: "The Nation's First Madam: Nancy Pelosi and the Construction of the Contemporary Political Female", Emily Berg
Paper: "The Feminist Façade: The Construction of the Female Presidency on Prime-time Television", Emily Berg
Paper: "Ceremonial Enthymeme: Social Knowledge and the Problem of the Probable", Samuel Boerboom
Paper: "Securing the Heteronormative Family: Ethics and the Problem of Marriage" (A Top 5 Paper in the Student Section), Samuel Boerboom
Paper: "Democrats, Faith, and Articulatory Politics", Samuel Boerboom
Paper: "Satire and Perspective by Incongruity in 'Chappelle's Show'" (A Top 5 Paper in the Student Section), Beth E. Bonnstetter
Paper: "Parents vs. Adolescents: Parent-Adolescent Communication About Sex", Heidi Branstad
Paper: "On the Limits of Assimilation: A Call for Integrationist Rhetoric in the LGBT Movement", Jon Hoffman
Panel Chair: The Influence of Message Characteristics on Interpersonal Communication, Alyssa Isaacs
Paper: "The Influence of Family on Adolescent Sexual Behavior", Alyssa Isaacs
Paper: "The Influence of Socialization Agents' Perceived Sexual Attitudes on the Sexual Behavior of Adolescents", Alyssa Isaacs
Panel Chair: Problematic Interactions in Romantic Relationships, Naomi Kagawa
Paper: "Theory of Strategic Self-Disclosure", Naomi Kagawa & Ascan F. Koerner
Paper: "From Ideology to Identity in New Social Movement Theory: The Rhetoric of the True Believer and the American Occupation of Alcatraz", Casey Ryan Kelly
Paper: The Problem of Praxis in the Demystification of Race: Considering Intersectionality in Critical Studies" [This paper is the recipient of this year's Top Student Paper Award for the Critical and Cultural Studies Division of NCA.], Abraham Khan
Presenter: Jurgen Habermas and Argument Theory, Justin L. Killian
Panel Chair: Narrative, Performance, and Politics: Expanding Worldviews in GLBT Studies, Justin L. Killian
Paper: "Trauma, Drama & Romance: Minorities and Power Relationships on Grey's Anatomy", Kim Klietz
Paper: "'The Great Minnesota Get-Together:' A Rhetorical Approach to Democratic Theory", Rebecca A. Kuehl
Paper: "Wimps, Wusses, and Girlie-Men: The Democratic Party as Feminized 'Other' in Post 9/11 Politics", Rebecca A. Kuehl
Panel Chair: Carrie Bradshaw Meets Girl Wrestlers: Autoethnography, Postfeminism, and the Myth of the Incomplete Woman, Rebecca A. Kuehl
Paper: "Nixon and Bush Justify Their Wars: Situation by Simplification", Margaret H. Kunde
Panel Chair: Issues in Interpersonal Communication: Emotions and Equations, Eunsoon Lee
Presenter: Jurgen Habermas and Argument Theory, Michael J. Lee
Paper: "Contradiction and Political Theatre: The Case of Ann Coulter", Michael J. Lee
Presenter: Jurgen Habermas and Argument Theory, Monica A. Moore
Paper: "Measuring Media Diversity for a Marketplace of Ideas", Tony Nadler
Paper: "Rescue Me: The Political Incorrectness of Being Male", Pamela H. Nettleton
Panel Chair: Women and Agency: Challenging Definitions of Womanhood, Amy M. Pason
Paper: "Democratic Iterations: Fostering Cosmopolitan Democratic Citizenship", Amy M. Pason
Paper: "Reconstituting Anarchism: Emma Goldman's Rhetoric to Undermine the , Logic of Laws", Amy M. Pason
Paper: "Parades, Picketing, and Hunger Strikes: Insurrectional Speech Acts of Suffragist Bodies", Jessica Prody
Paper: "Challenging (Hi)stories: Calling the Clan of One-Breasted Women to Resistive Action", Jessica Prody
Paper: "They are us/U.S.: 9/11, Zombies, and the Ideological Force of the Monstrous Other in Popular Culture", Emanuelle M. Wessels
Paper: "Michael Haneke's Funny Games: Adorno, Pasolini, and Film Beyond the Culture Industry", Julie A. Wilson
Paper: "Zapista Challenges: Neoliberal Governmentality and Technologies of Self", Julie A. Wilson
OTHER DEPARTMENT NEWS
Senior Faculty
Karlyn Kohrs Campbell traveled to the University of Texas in early November. She lectured on "The Presidency and the Power of Words" and met with Dana Cloud's rhetorical criticism seminar. She enjoyed the hospitality of a delightful group of graduate students and faculty, including Josh Gunn and Barry Brummett.
Laurie Ouellette attended the Unboxing TV/Future of Entertainment conference MIT in Cambridge, MA November 16-21, 2007. She presented a paper, "Citizenship, Politics, & TV."
Laurie Ouellette's new book Better Living Through Reality TV: Television and Post- Welfare Citizenship (with James Hay) was released by Blackwell Publishers in November 2007.
Laurie Ouellette presented "Media Studies, Cultural Studies and the Current Rationalities of Government" at the Cultural Studies NOW conference at the University of East London in July 2007.
From October 14-20, 2007 Kirt Wilson was the University of Maine's 2007 Libra Diversity Visiting Professor. With Professor Lisa Flores (University of Utah), he gave two public lectures, taught three classes, facilitated a pedagogy workshop, and interacted with university faculty and students.
Graduate Students
Beth Bonnstetter (Ph.D. Candidate) and Associate Professor Brian Ott (Colorado State) published the article "'We're At Now, Now': ; 'Spaceballs' as Parodic Tourism" in the Dec. issue of the Southern Communication Journal. This article was also the lead article.
Beth Bonnstetter (Ph.D. Candidate) had a book chapter "Of Stories, Structures and Spaceballs: Parody as Criticism of Genre Film and Myth" published in Siths, Slayers, Stargates, and Cyborgs: Modern Mythology in the New Millennium, edited by John Perlich and David Whitt and published by Peter Lang.
Casey Kelly (Ph.D. Candidate) presented the paper "Rhetorical Counterinsurgency and the FBI's war against Leonard Peltier and the American Indian Movement" at the American Society for the History of Rhetoric Preconference. This paper will also appear in Volume 10 of Advances in the History of Rhetoric.
Matthew May (Ph.D. Candidate) reviewed Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment by Brian Garsten published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, 93, 470-473.
Recent M.A. Degrees
"Not a Third Party, but Me!: An Evaluation of Minnesota Independence Party
Gubernatorial Candidate Peter Hutchinson's failed Attempt to use Ethos
and Logs to Connect with the Voters"
Margaret Kunde
Adviser: Edward Schiappa
"Authenticating U2: Zoo TV and the Authenticity Crisis in Rock"
Kristine Weglarz
Adviser: Gilbert Rodman
Teaching Faculty / Alumni
Patricia Goodwin (M.A. 1979) was named USA Track and Field's Women's Long Distance Running "Contributor of the Year" at the organization's annual convention. Pat is the 31st recipient of the award and was nominated for founding and volunteering her time as President of Team USA Minnesota.
Peter Gregg (Ph.D. 2005) along with Edward Schiappa, Department Chair, received a $20,000 Instructional Equipment Grant for Production Equipment from the College of Liberal Arts, Office of Information Technology. The upgraded video equipment will be used in our electronic media production classes.
It is with sadness that your COMMPOST editors report the unexpected death of Ms. Judy VanPutten on November 30, 2007. She received both a bachelors and masters degree in our department.
Thank you for your "bits and pieces" for COMMPOST. Next edition: March 2007.